Irit Ruth Kleiman

Associate Professor of Romance Studies
Faculty in French Boston University
United States of America

Biography

"Professor Kleiman teaches courses on the literatures and cultures of medieval and Renaissance France, and serves on the faculty of the Core Curriculum in the Humanities. Her research interests include historiography, law and literature, intellectual history, the cultures of memory, Mediterranean studies, the material turn, history of the senses, psychoanalysis and literature, and the tropes of embodiment. Kleiman’s first book, Philippe de Commynes: Memory, Betrayal, Text (University of Toronto Press, 2013), received the Newberry Library’s Weiss/Brown Award. She is also the editor of Voice and Voicelessness in Medieval Europe (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Her other publications include articles and book chapters on topics including the apocryphal Life of Judas Iscariot, the romances of Chrétien de Troyes, the crusade narrative of Jean de Joinville, and the rhetoric of late-medieval political resistance. She is currently at work on a book about historical witness and the sense of touch. Kleiman served as Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Romance Studies from 2013 until the end of 2016, and as Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Medieval Studies from 2014-2016."

Research Interest

Historiography, law and literature, intellectual history, the cultures of memory, Mediterranean studies, the material turn, history of the senses, psychoanalysis and literature, and the tropes of embodiment